IIDA Launches Certified Design Futurist Program

Chicago, IL, June 12, 2024-The International Interior Design Association (IIDA) has announced the launch of the IIDA Certified Design Futurist program (CDF)-an educational opportunity, expanding the forward-looking nature of design into a core foresight capability that provides significant value to designers, firms and their clients. The dynamic CDF curriculum was developed in an exclusive partnership with the Future Today Institute. FTI founder and CEO Amy Webb, a world-renowned quantitative futurist, as well as FTI senior foresight manager and IIDA futurist-in-residence Mark Bryan, collaborated with IIDA on a program based on FTI’s research-backed, proven methodologies.

IIDA’s commitment to advancing the profession of interior design and creating growth opportunities for designers, firms and the entire industry is well-served by a partnership with FTI. The world’s premiere strategic foresight consulting firm, FTI’s proprietary strategic foresight methodology enables organizations to plan for unpredictable futures with certainty.

Strategic foresight has become a critical skill for businesses and clients of all kinds. Designers, product developers, real estate brokers, managers, researchers, executives, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, dealers, and sales teams can all benefit from knowing how to practice strategic foresight. This course has been designed with each of these roles and aspects of the design industry in mind, backed by a rigorous evidence-based-research methodology that has been deployed by companies around the world.

Course participants can expect to bring meaningful change to their organizations-to help see and shape the preferred future of the business. Clients will benefit from the CDFs’ ability to generate long-term insights that can lead to decisions that drive success.

The curriculum development and testing is already underway with the beta cohort expected to wrap by fall 2024. The program will accept its inaugural class in early 2025.